Recently, in movies, commercial advertisements, or the like, images are generated using various special techniques in order to provide more splendid images.
A technology of synthesizing two or more images into a single image is the most widely used of the special techniques.
This image synthesis is commonly performed by selecting a region, desired for synthesis by a user, from a source image and combining a foreground, i.e., the selected region, with a ground image. However, this technology is problematic in that an image synthesized by the above-described method is not natural due to an abrupt change in pixel value in a boundary portion attributable to the difference in brightness, color, or the like between a source image and a ground image.
Accordingly, Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2013-0123820 relates to a real-time image synthesis apparatus and method, which are configured to, when a background image is determined in response to a user selection signal, determine a region and a location with which a user image is to be combined on a background image, extract a real-time appearance of a user via a camera, combine the extracted real-time appearance of the user with the determined background image by means of a mixing or masking method, and provide a synthesized image. However, the technology disclosed in this published patent document cannot overcome the above-described problem.
Accordingly, there is a need for a technology that is capable of overcoming the above-described problem.
Meanwhile, the above-described background art corresponds to technical information which has been possessed by the present inventor in order to conceive the present invention or which has been acquired in the process of conceiving the present invention, and is not necessarily considered to be a well-known technology that had been known to the public before the filing date of the present invention.